Didome
Scope
The motivation behind building Didome
Welcome to the world of Didome. This world started with a question I had 10 years ago. Could humans survive on a world where one day lasted 1/2 an Earth year. Would the day side be an raging inferno and the night side be a hellish ice world? Would humans need advanced technology to stay at a comfortable temperature or could they survive with more primitive technology. While I found the questions fascinating I am also a science nerd - I majored in Biological Chemistry and taught Physics for 5 years - and wanted to know what climate would be like according to our current understanding of the physics of exoplanets.
Luckily, I am not the only science nerd in the world and some astrophysicists modeled the climate of earth like planets with a perpetual day and night side. While I won't get into a lot of the physics here, I do explain the Physics of Didome in more depth. Essentially what I discovered is that for a world like Didome the atmosphere would move the cold air of the night to the hot day side of the planet, thus keeping both sides of the planet at survivable if not at comfortable temperatures. The day would get to around 35-40 C (95-105 F) and -25 to -30 C (-10 to -20 F) at night. So my next question was if humans were on Didome how what societies would they create and what would their belief systems be like?
Unstated assumptions about the humans on Didome. Click only if you want spoilers
Luckily, I am not the only science nerd in the world and some astrophysicists modeled the climate of earth like planets with a perpetual day and night side. While I won't get into a lot of the physics here, I do explain the Physics of Didome in more depth. Essentially what I discovered is that for a world like Didome the atmosphere would move the cold air of the night to the hot day side of the planet, thus keeping both sides of the planet at survivable if not at comfortable temperatures. The day would get to around 35-40 C (95-105 F) and -25 to -30 C (-10 to -20 F) at night. So my next question was if humans were on Didome how what societies would they create and what would their belief systems be like?
Unstated assumptions about the humans on Didome. Click only if you want spoilers
I assume the following things about the ancient humans on Didome. I never state them explicitly in the world, because this is information that has been lost in the modern world on Didome
1. Humanity learned that there was a habitable planet within a few light years of the Earth. They knew it had a oxygen atmosphere and a orbital period of 61 days, but not much more.
2. Humanity had colonized much of the solar system and with their vast resources decided to put together an expedition to colonize the world.
3. The expedition consisted of Hundreds of generation ship each capable of hold a few hundred humans. The ships would take about 100-300 years to reach Didome. The ships were in radio contact, but were unable to exchange resources with one another.
4. Before many more ships can be sent, the Solar system descends into system wide war and human civilization on Earth and the solar system is wiped-out.
4. The last generation ship loses contact with the rest, they assume it had a accident that wiped out its humans.
6. The ships arrive on Didome and a few thousand humans start to colonize the planet. Some humans remain in the ships to support the colonists with science and resources.
7. The last colony ship comes into didome, with the leaders being a religious cult of mutineers that captured the ship. They believe no one should be allowed to settle Didiome.
8. The ship slams into the main settlement Prometheus destroying the main settlement. The shuttles on the ship detach and each collide with one of the remaining generation ships destroying them and making a huge debris field in low orbit.
9. Some humans manage to escape the destroyed generation ships and are dropped randomly across the Der river valley.
9. There are 3 remnant populations of humans on Didome that are now struggling to survive: The shattered remnants of the promethean settlers, the survivors of the generation ships randomly dropped across the surface. and a smaller group of settlers from one generation ship who insisted the other continent would be the better place to settle.
10. With the small populations and the lost of most of their advanced machinery, much of the advanced technological knowledge is lost. When you lack the industry to produce and maintain an electrical grid, knowing about electricity is not critical to survival and thus is lost in a generation or two. Essentially, the technology that remains is the technology that is useful to survival and can be implemented by a couple hundred humans. For example, metalworking, wind power, agriculture, etc.
The goal of the project
I am mainly getting entertainment out of it as I think through how the humans would development. I also might in a year do a RPG in the world or write some stories. But mainly I am creating it to have a interesting alternative world that I find interesting and appealing.
Theme
Genre
This is a hard question to pin down exactly. I guess the genre would be low fantasy blended with concepts from hard sci. Specifically, the world is supposed to be a representation of how cultures and societies developed on this world.
I see the hard sci fi elements being that nothing on the world can explicitly break the laws of physics, and the geophysics of the world have been worked out in a way that does not break the laws of astrophysics. I have consider plate tectonics when developing the geography of the world. I have even considered the evolutionary history of life on the planet to create the flora and fuana and when determining where iron deposits or shale and limestone deposits would be.
However, I see the world as mainly low fantasy because a large focus of the world is how the cultures in the world developed and they function and interact. To me a low fantasy setting works best where stories set in the world would focus on the characters of the world and their interactions. Also I believe that if you look at the history of Earth as a whole, one would classify it as a gritty low fantasy world filled with flawed characters and petty power struggles. Maybe this is my bias but I think the world is closer to Game of Thrones then to Lord of the Rings. So using a Low fantasy lens I believe creates a more realistic depiction of the devlopment of the cultures on Didome.
Finally, the world has a technology level roughly equivalent to the renaissance. With firearms being rediscovered and many area of the world primed for a industrial revolution period of rapid productivity growth. However, many parts of the world have less focus on the development of ideas that we would associate with the enlightenment. Part of this has to do with the fact that many cultures in the world don't have a focus on individualism, and instead focus on duty to ones family or city.
Reader Experience
The world should feel fairly wonderous yet at the same time feel fairly mundane. What I mean by this is the world is very different from Earth and has feature that are completely unique to the world. However, the people in the world find the world completely normal and ordinary. So the tension is describing the world that is fairly wonderous for the readers but portrays the characters feelings about how this world is completely natural.
Reader Tone
The world is fairly dark to grey. The world has a technology level equivalent to the renaissance and not much of a focus on human rights. This would naturally led to a fairly dark world that is hard to survive in. However, the tone does vary significantly between different regions of the world.
Recurring Themes
The ones who have the power make the rules
Tradition enforces the status quo
Oppression comes in many forms
What's fantastical is mundane
The past feels more heroic then the present
Character Agency
The world is a fairly grim world with the characters not having much agency in the world. The few leaders of the world are mired down with political considerations. The has featured grand conflicts, crusades and struggles, but when each one is examined their is always nuance and complication. The historical figures that have been idealized in the world might have seemed to make grand sweeping changes but the reality of their situations are always more complicated.
Focus
Drama
The settlement of the Strepslim by the Yenari Empire and the oppression of the Tern Bas that this has cuased.
The The Shadvruk control over the Jharette faith and how they have ruthlessly took back control of Shadcress from the Cradari Empire. The brutal tactic they have used to try to enforce their religion on this fairly multicultural region.
The political unrest in Sol-Cid and how that has created instability in the once very stable empire. Some fear it is on the brink of a hugely devastating civil war.
The Eral Islands concern over the Cradari Empire occupation of Marrish and the potential interruption of the export of their staple food bread wisp larva.
The rumors of instability in the Cradari Empire and the potential for massive internal conflict in the empire.
Want to see more Summer Camp 2022 Articles? They are all in this catergory
Need an overview of the world, here is a basic primer on the world
Want to see how Didome develops? Make sure to follow the world.
© 2022. Unless otherwise stated, the work on this page is licensed under a CC BY NC SA 4.0 license.
Picture frame Image by: Eric Wüstenhagen (CC BY-SA 2.0) Background image by: H.Adam